Alarak Build Guide “The hour of my vengeance has come.”
Welcome to our guide for Alarak, a Melee Assassin in Heroes of the Storm. Within these pages, you will find everything required to understand how best to play this hero, in both different map styles and team compositions.
Alarak's Overview
Alarak is a melee Assassin who controls the battlefield by manipulating the positioning of his enemies. He can sacrifice raw damage for increased utility through Sadism, allowing him to deal with each challenge differently. Telekinesis allows him to push himself and enemies in any direction, while Discord Strike can render them completely helpless afterward. It is recommended to play him alongside tanks and assassins. He excels at displacing enemies into dangerous positions, enabling easy follow-ups from teammates, securing takedowns. Reliably landing Discord Strike and Telekinesis can be difficult, and requires practice. Putting in the time to get comfortable with these Abilities is essential in leveraging his great potential.
Alarak's Strengths and Weaknesses
- Can Silence enemies often by using Discord Strike
- Can reposition enemies or himself with Telekinesis
- Great potential to setup takedowns
- Strong burst damage
- Very high skill ceiling
- Poor waveclear
- Cannot solo Mercenary Camps effectively
- Discord Strike's delay and shape can make it a relatively difficult skillshot
- Difficult to master
Alarak's Talent Build Cheatsheet
Standard Build
RecommendedAlarak's Standard Build will enable him to use Telekinesis more often, due to Ruthless Momentum. Show of Force enhances your burst damage, facilitating the kill on the displaced target. It will also be slowly empowering your Sadism, turning Alarak into a real threat. Counter-Strike is a good survibability option for him, however, Deadly Charge can be a good choice for securing kills. Getting the other Heroic Ability at 20 will always be a good choice, but Hasty Bargain can be excellent in teamfights, if you are comfortable with it.
This build is focused on using Discord Strike and Lightning Surge to follow-up Telekinesis whenever you can do so safely. Do not be afraid to combo Tanks; with a good follow-up, they may lose most of their Health or even get killed by it.
Overwhelming Power Build
SituationalAlarak's Overwhelming Power Build shifts him from a burst Hero towards a Bruiser playstyle, by enhancing his Basic Attacks, self-sustain, and crowd control. Differently from the other builds, this one does not get Applied Force at Level 7. Therefore, we do not recommend it against poke compositions or against many Ranged Assassins, since you will have a hard time hitting combos or delivering Basic Attacks towards them. Despite this weakness, we find this build excellent when facing melee-heavy team compositions. Alarak will be able to easily punish those melee Heroes, while also reducing their power due to extra Silence or Slow provided by his Level 7 Talents.
Overwhelming Power empowers Basic Attacks and encourages Alarak to be always delivering Basic Attacks after a combo. At Level 7, Hindered Motion is the standard Talent, since it will enable you to be constantly attacking the target, getting value from your Level 1 and 16's Talents. However, if you already have a decent way to reduce your enemy's movements in your team, like Jaina or Fenix provide, we recommend going for Dissonance instead. Lethal Onslaught at Level 16 will be excellent if you have a good amount of Sadism stacks, because it will provide more damage and healing from your Basic Attacks, making it easier to maintain your lead. However, Mocking Strikes will be a great power spike in fights, since it will provide more combos and crowd control for your team.
Lightning Surge Build
SituationalThe Lightning Surge Build is exceptionally good at long range poke, especially against melee-heavy team compositions. Target enemy Heroes behind the enemy frontline whenever possible, to damage as many Heroes with each cast as possible. When you finish stacking Extended Lightning, you will be able to slow enemies who are hit by the center of the beam. Negatively Charged can be stacked without limit, and is not lost on death. With Hasty Bargain and clever positioning, you can cast Lightning Surge up to 4 times in quick succession. It is very important to focus on hitting enemy Heroes with the center of Lightning Surge's beam, as many of your Talent investments involve this mechanic.
Unfortunately this build has poor early game, and is very reliant on having many stacks from Extended Lightning. For this reason, we only recommend going for it in scenarios where you will easily stack, like in Tomb of the Spider Queen, Braxis Holdout or Infernal Shrines.
Alarak's Synergies and Counters
Alarak has terrible waveclear, but excels at displacing enemies, while silencing them. Therefore, Assassins with decent waveclear and good damage to follow his combo are excellent with him, such as Jaina or Raynor. E.T.C. and Garrosh are also decent with Alarak, since their displacement and crowdcontrol are good for following his combo, or to setup for it.
Alarak is countered by crowd control. Johanna and E.T.C. are a threat, since their stuns will not allow Counter-Strike or Telekinesis to be used, turning him into an easy kill. Medivh is also a nuisance, since his Force of Will may protect against Discord Strike, and Poly Bomb is a great follow up to kill you. Deathwing can ignore Alarak, since he is constantly unstoppable and will not be displaced or silenced.
Alarak's Maps
Alarak is not able to deal large amounts of damage to non-Heroic entities during PvE encounters with his Abilities; however, he can be effective during team fights that occur during map objectives. He is better on maps that are oriented around team fighting, rather than those that require strong Minion or Mercenary clearing. Narrow choke points can help him land his Abilities on multiple enemy Heroes at the same time.
Alarak is an excellent pick in Battlefield of Eternity, considering he can use Telekinesis to displace enemies into Immortal stun. Be aware this can be done in other maps as well, such as Hanamura Temple, or Tomb of The Spider Queen. You can use it to Displace your enemies into Sentinel's AoE slash, or towards Webweavers' Death Wave.
Alarak's Tips and Tricks
- Use Discord Strike to Silence and damage your enemies, leaving them vulnerable.
- You can self cast Telekinesis to propel yourself forward, into the direction Alarak is facing. Use this to confirm a kill, or push yourself to safety.
- Lightning Surge has low mana cost, and is a great way to recover small amounts of Health as needed. Always try to hit enemies with the center of its beam for extra damage.
- Deadly Charge can be channeled for a small duration, allowing you to use it quickly in a teamfight, but still dealing all the damage. This is recommended to be done when enemies can easily punish you after you dive in, considering you will not lunge to the middle of enemy team by using it quickly.
- Be aware that you will lose all your Sadism on death, so even though a game is looking easy, it can easily backfire if you lose your stacks. In many situations it might be better to just abandon allies in a bad situation, instead of trying to help them and risking your own life.
- Make whatever choices will help you establish dominance; even if that means sacrificing some of Sadism's bonus damage for utility options.
Alarak's Role in the Current Meta
Alarak works best on a team that can reliably follow up when he forces an enemy out of position or silences them. Alarak forces enemies to respect his area of influence, as getting too close can quickly result in death. His kit is composed of powerful skillshots, which can be extremely rewarding when combinations are executed flawlessly.
Alarak is stronger when close to his team, and should be played following them. He is dependent on stacking his Sadism, and Show of Force or Negatively Charged, which is easier to be done against four possible targets, instead of one.
Changelog
- 15 Apr. 2022 (this page): Guide reviewed after balance patch and no changes are necessary.
- 26 Mar. 2021 (talents page): Talent Recommendations updated.
- 05 Nov. 2020 (talents page): Mocking Strikes description updated.
- 14 Sep. 2020 (this page): Guide updated after balance patch.
- 17 May 2020 (talents page): Overwhelming Power build added.
- 07 May 2020 (talents page): Builds and Talent page updated accordingly to May 6th balance patch.
- 05 Apr. 2020 (talents page): Talent descriptions updated to better suit current meta.
- 05 Apr. 2020 (this page): Guide updated to better suit current meta.
- 15 Dec. 2019 (this page): Updated Role in the Current Meta to include information on current Nexus Anomaly.
- 28 Nov. 2019 (talents page): Guide reviewed to ensure meta relevance after balance patch.
- 28 Nov. 2019 (abilities page): Guide reviewed to ensure meta relevance after balance patch.
- 28 Nov. 2019 (this page): Guide reviewed to ensure meta relevance after balance patch.
- 30 Aug. 2019 (talents page): Guide reviewed to ensure meta relevance after balance patch.
- 30 Aug. 2019 (abilities page): Guide reviewed to ensure meta relevance after balance patch.
- 30 Aug. 2019 (this page): Guide reviewed to ensure meta relevance after balance patch.
- 24 Aug. 2019 (talents page): Guide reviewed to ensure meta relevance.
- 24 Aug. 2019 (abilities page): Guide reviewed to ensure meta relevance.
- 24 Aug. 2019 (this page): Guide reviewed to ensure meta relevance.
- 24 May 2019 (talents page): Talent descriptions updated to account for Balance Patch.
- 24 May 2019 (this page): Talent descriptions updated to account for Balance Patch.
- 18 Apr. 2019 (talents page): Talent descriptions updated to account for Balance Patch.
- 18 Apr. 2019 (this page): Talent descriptions updated to account for Balance Patch.
- 11 Apr. 2019 (talents page): Tier 1 Talent recommendations updated.
- 30 Mar. 2019 (talents page): Talents page updated to reflect meta developments.
- 30 Mar. 2019 (this page): Guide updated to reflect meta developments.
- 26 Aug. 2017 (talents page): Blade of the Highlord text updated to reflect balance patch, earlier this week.
- 20 Jun. 2017 (talents page): Extended Lightning text updated.
- 01 Jun. 2017 (talents page): Text updated for Show of Force's discussion.
- 31 May 2017 (talents page): Talents page updated following balance patch.
- 16 May 2017 (talents page): Talents page updated following Alarak's rework in D.Va's release patch.
- 16 May 2017 (abilities page): Abilities page updated following Alarak's rework in D.va's release patch.
- 16 May 2017 (this page): Guide updated following Alarak rework in D.Va's release patch.
- 25 Jan. 2017 (this page): Added new Double Cross build.
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Derenash has been playing Heroes of the Storm since 2015 and has achieved Grandmaster in multiple seasons, peaking at Top 1 in Season 3 and 4 of 2018. He participated in the HGC Copa America in 2018 where his team had a strong victory. He is passionate about teaching others about the game, and streams often on Twitch in Portuguese, and you can find him in Wind Striders' Discord as well where he is happy to answer any questions in English or Portuguese.
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